


In the Face of Adversity

by plant_boi_potter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Breaking a Curse With a Kiss Trope, Disaster Harry, Drarry Strugglefest 2020, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Minor Magical Catastrophes, Proposals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plant_boi_potter/pseuds/plant_boi_potter
Summary: Draco’s been acting strangely secretive and none of his friends will tell Harry why - but for once in his life, Harry seems to have bigger problems.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108
Collections: Drarry Strugglefest 2020





	1. Muggle Remedies

“Have you tried using acetone?”

“Have I _what now_?”

“To get rid of your awful sticking charms, why do you look angry?” Ron whirled his scrubbing brush around the pan from a foot away as he spoke. 

“You’re telling me that I’ve been to not one, but _two_ magical repair places - who _couldn’t help me, by the way -_ just for you to tell me to use a Muggle solvent?” Harry spoke slowly, deliberately trying to keep his tone even.

“Yeah.”

Harry dragged his hand down his face, ignoring the scratch of two day old stubble. “You learned this from Hermione, I suppose?”

“Uh, no.” Ron jerked his wand in an arc and Harry watched the dishes position themselves neatly in the drying rack before remembering he needed to breathe out. It seemed all the breath had been taken from him the moment Ron had said the word a _cetone._

“Everyone knows sticking charms are tricky. Sometimes magic just won’t budge without Muggle equipment. It’s what we used to use before wands, you know.”

“ _I_ didn’t know _any_ of this.” Harry sounded exasperated. A dark tint had collected under his eyes from two nights of travel and Merlin-knows how many hours of wasteful conversation. His hosts had been quite accommodating with the tea and biscuits but less so information-wise. He’d eventually given up, sloping off to Ron and Hermione’s for a break before he looked for someone else tomorrow. Even he couldn’t function on the fraction of sleep he’d managed to get. 

* * *

“Why do _you_ know anyway?” Harry narrowed his eyes at his friend, who laughed. He genuinely wondered whether Ron would be so cruel as to prank him with something like this. 

“Pureblood genes.” Ron shrugged, his button down heaving along with his chest, “It’s just something that gets passed down through the family and you assume everyone else just knows about it. It honestly didn’t twig until tonight that you might be looking for a sticking charm solution. Anyway, it’s not really a _polite society_ conversation, is it?” 

He snarled the words polite society as if they’d personally wronged him, although with some of Ron’s family - not including his parents - it wouldn’t be that far from the truth. As quickly as the anger had come, it dissipated. The hard lines of his face smoothed back into something that resembled Ron, a look that embodied him so perfectly that there was no singular way to describe it. 

* * *

“Draco’s going to kill me.” Harry eventually said into his cordial. 

“Wait, _Draco_?” Ron was so shocked it seemed he’d forgotten to call the man Malfoy for the first time in his life. “I thought your frantic scrambling was about the Black portrait.” 

Before Harry could even think about Walaburga Black’s incessant screaming Ron rushed on, assuring himself that Harry wasn’t too deep in his own head not to listen to him. “What’s that poncey git got to do with sticking charms?”

“Uh, he hasn’t.” Harry pushed the bridge of his glasses up his nose, where they promptly slid back down.“Not... officially anyway.” 

Ron narrowed his eyes and Harry was startingly reminded of Hermione. Since when did Ron become the sensible one! God!

“I really am screwed, if _you’re_ giving me advice.” Harry continued, nodding to Ron.

“I see you’re back to bullying my husband.” Hermione appeared from behind a paper bag full of vegetables. She turned to Ron. “What’s he done this time?” 

“He’s having charm troubles.” Harry hadn’t noticed the point when Ron had gotten himself a drink but now that he had it he was definitely chuckling into his butterbeer. 

“Charm troubles?” Hermione levitated her shopping onto the counter so she could put her hands - balled into determined fists - on her hips. “Is that a euphemism?” 

Ron really lost it then and everyone else in the room had to wait patiently for him to stop gasping. 

A dusting of light beer froth coated his top lip as he made a considerable effort to refrain from saying anything else that would set him off again. 

Harry cleared his throat. “What he _means_ to say is I’ve, uh-” Harry, once again, faltered. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks, and although he knew the others couldn’t see it, it didn’t make it any less embarrassing while it was happening. “I accidentally stuck Draco’s shoes to the floor.”

“Can’t he just go buy new shoes?” Ron asked. 

“They’re the ones he bought for the ball.” Harry admitted. 

Hermione, at least, had the decency to let her hand fly to her mouth. “Oh Harry!” 

The ball, which they’d been so graciously invited to attend, was an illustrious occasion that couldn’t really be turned down - _even_ by a Thank You note by a particularly regal looking owl, (Harry had asked if it was possible.)

“When does he get home from Belfast?” 

Draco had been in Belfast for almost a week, ironing out Muggle/Wizard relations between England and the Celtic Nations. Supposedly, according to Draco, it was the Muggle/Muggle relations they needed to be more worried about. 

“Two days.” Harry sighed miserably. “I don’t know why he puts up with it all; I spelled his grey robes pink the day he was due to Portkey there.” 

“Aren’t all his robes grey?” Ron said.

“They’re different shades.” Hermione looked at Harry, horrified that she knew such a thing. While they were on a first name basis now, they were still by no means on friendly terms. 

Harry’s expression mirrored Hermione’s, albeit with less hair. The pure horror that he’d divulged such information as Draco’s wardrobe choices, and apparently bemoaned them enough times for Hermione to quote his words exactly back at him was a ghastly notion. 

_Ghastly._ He must have been missing Draco more than he thought he was, if he was thinking in his speech patterns. Maybe he needed more sleep than he’d originally thought. 

“So, acetone.”

* * *

Draco’s dress shoes were immaculate when he’d gotten them, a low heeled leather dress shoe with a patent square toe. They were quite nice to look at, really. Or they had been. The problem was, Draco had put them on the shoe rack by the door before he’d left for Belfast, because it was practical.

Unfortunately, the door was also practical and Harry slammed it into the shoe rack almost constantly. In hindsight, he should have moved the shoe rack. Instead, he’d just left it where it was and vowed to put all the shoes back in their rightful places before Draco got home. 

At the time it had seemed like a non-issue, he wasn’t going to waste his valuable sleep on righting all the shoes if he was just going to knock them back down again six times. 

_Valuable sleep._ He’d been so smug about it. 

Now, with leaden feet Harry dragged himself through his own door only to send the umbrella stand flying and, in haste to get away from the falling umbrella stand, managed to fall over the shoes that were still well and truly stuck to the floor. 

Behind her drapes, Harry could hear Walaburga cackling, the mirthless sound raking through his ears. 

He stared at the shoes and the stain underneath with loathing. The colours weren’t that different - it was a black floor after all - but Harry was quite a bit closer to it than he had been in previous months and he could see where the stain of the wood had chipped away and how the glue-like substance of the sticking charm had clung to the shoes, almost a perfect black outline against the tobacco coloured wood. 

* * *

“Acetone.” Harry had muttered the same word over and over again as he searched the storage cupboards under the sink, the only difference being the cadence of his voice as he tried to squeeze his long, athletic limbs into the tight space. 

“Lumos.”

The light flared so abruptly that Harry recoiled, banging his head on one of the pipes to the sink as he went. 

He scoured the very back of the cupboard again, this time with the help of some light and the ability to move things more easily than before. Hidden under the more useless cleaning products, the rubbing alcohol stared him in the face. 

Easing himself out of the cupboard, back-end first, Harry grabbed onto the bottle as if it was a lifeline, conveniently ignoring the dripping that had started above his head. 

* * *

“Surprise!” The living room floo spat out green flames as Draco landed neatly on the carpet, brushing his immaculate robes for invisible dust as he did so. “Mon Chou, I’m home.” The name calling had been intentionally sarcastic at first, a nod to Harry’s Cabbage-Patch bedhead, but, as these things do, it had stuck. “Where are you?” 

“NO! Don’t come in!” Draco was an inch away from the door that led into their hallway before it was promptly slammed in his face. 

“Not the welcome I thought I’d be getting but I’m glad you’re home and I wasn’t wasting my breath by shouting at an empty house.”

“Nonsense, you’d be serenading Mrs. Black.” Harry found it much more satisfying insulting Walburga when she couldn’t see him - and right now he didn’t want _anyone_ to see him.

It wasn’t the most flattering position, being splayed out on his stomach with a blue alcohol soaked cloth in one hand and a bright yellow glue scraper in another. 

“Harry?” Draco sounded worried, but he wasn’t really surprised, given the circumstances. “Is there supposed to be water coming through the carpet?” 

Harry turned to watch multiple rivulets of water trickling from the sink and down the hall, converging only at the entrance of the living room door, a thin line of water soaking into the carpet on the other side. 

“Oh no.” Harry whispered, his scraper clattering to the floor in favour of his wand. “Tergeo!” The cleaning spell helped as far as drying the floor went but he would have to get closer to the sink if he wanted to fix the leak.

* * *

“Harry, what happened to my dress shoes?” Draco didn’t sound angry - just perplexed - as he stood in the middle of the hallway, blue cloth in hand, watching Harry try to squeeze himself under the sink for the second time that day.

“I was gone for five days and you’ve managed to destroy most of downstairs.” It wasn’t a question, Draco’s lips quirked in the approximation of a smile as Harry tried to pretend he was busy fixing the sink. 

“You have a bit of a lump on the back of the head.” Draco abandoned his shoes in favour of kneeling behind Harry, positioning his knees in between the floorboards so he was hovering over Harry’s right calf. “Let me look at it at least.”

Reluctantly, Harry shuffled back from the dripping sink as Draco’s fingers carded through his hair, lightly at first, before he started pressing down. 

“Does that hurt?” 

“No.”

“Okay, good, now, is this bit tende-”

“OW!” 

“Yes-” Draco supplied before moving on. 

He did this for a few moments before Harry broke the silence; it was easier to talk while staring at the sink bottom. 

“I’m sorry I ruined your dress shoes. And the sink. And the umbrella stand.”

“And the carpet and the floorboards.” Draco pointed out. 

“Hey! Ow.” Harry shook his head so his curls fell back over Draco’s fingers. “What are you doing anyway? You’re not a healer.” 

“I’m not. I took a Health and Safety course while in Belfast.”

“Why? You’re in Muggle liaison.” 

“You’re not a Muggle.” Draco kissed Harry on the shoulder before asking him to move out of the way of the sink. “Reparo.” 

Harry almost hit his head against the cupboard door as he watched the join in the pipes repair itself with such efficiency that he’d have thought he was just delirious - if not for his wet knees. 

He narrowed his eyes at Draco’s wand hand. “Don’t you dare think of cleaning my jeans while I’m wearing them.”

“Of course not darling.”

“Thank you.” 

“Now, can we get on with unravelling the mystery of my dress shoes?”

“Oh God.” Harry brought his hands up to his face, peering through his fingers as if to check that Draco hadn’t disappeared. “I tried to stick the umbrella stand to the floor so we wouldn’t keep tripping over it. Well, so _I_ wouldn’t keep tripping over it - But, evidently, it didn’t work.” He briefly removed his hands from his face to gesture the still stuck shoes. 

“Have you tried using acetone?”

“Why do _you all_ know this?” Harry threw his hands in the air. “Also, that _is_ acetone.” He pointed to the spray bottle besides the dress shoes. 

“That’s rubbing alcohol. Acetone has different components.” 

_“Oh, does it?”_ His sarcasm pitched higher on each word. 

“This wasn’t the reason I was home early but we might as well go into Diagon Alley… you need acetone so our hallway doesn’t look like it’s been rampaged by toddlers and I, evidently, need new dress shoes.” 

“Why do you put up with me?”

“Because I love you, you silly goose. I can also tell you didn’t get any sleep so don’t even _think_ about going straight away.” 

Harry’s hand receded from the doorknob and he moved toward the stairs. 

As he was shucking off his trousers to get into bed Harry asked why Draco had come home early - He would have known if anything had been cancelled. 

Draco shrugged as he tucked Harry into bed, eventually climbing in beside him. “Ron flooed me.”

“I- excuse you, did you just say _Ron._ ” 

“Of course, he seemed to be concerned you would set the house on fire or some such nonsense.” Draco looked towards his bedside unit.

“Great, you can just tell him I flooded the kitchen instead.” Harry was too tired to do much but let his head drop back against the pillow as Draco stroked his forehead.

”He and I are going out tomorrow morning, I know you probably want a lie in. You might need it.”

”Why are _you_ going out with _Ron?”_

 _”_ Oh, no reason.” 


	2. Minor Catastrophes

“You’re not going to _do_ anything are you?” The mirror gleamed in the early afternoon sun as Draco leant towards it, a contraption in his hand that looked like a torture device but, apparently was just for his eyebrows.

“That sounds ominous, why? Are you expecting me to set the ministry alight?”

“Something like that.” Draco fixed his tie, turning to Harry for approval.

“I don’t know why you’re asking me, you look good in everything.”

“Except red.” Draco wrinkled his nose. His suit was, of course, grey: a charcoal that was offset only by his green tie. He’d said something about it matching Harry’s eyes and the man had gone incredibly swoony.

Harry crossed the room so he could lean his head on Draco’s shoulder, kissing his neck intermittently. “I mean it. You look good in everything. Including-” He’d started popping the buttons of Draco’s suit jacket before Draco yelped.

“It’s two o’ clock! We’re going to be late!”

“Never before have I been so revolted by you but you sound like Aunt Petunia.” Harry stuck his tongue out in disgust before pulling his own jacket on and following his flustered boyfriend downstairs. “What did you go out for this morning?”

Draco hummed knowingly. “Oh... this and that.” He glanced up the stairs before wandering into the living room.

Draco threw floo powder into the fireplace as Harry skidded across the carpet. “Oh no! My shoes!”

He shook his head as Harry went back out into the hall to pull his dress shoes on before joining Draco by the fireplace.

* * *

They entered the atrium without any surprising mishaps. Harry even landed on his feet as he shot from the floo in the back of the room.

The place was already swarming and Draco delicately put his hand on Harry’s arm. “Please be careful. Ron said Hermione’s looking into it.”

Harry rolled his eyes, smiling for a camera that was pushed in his face before the reporter went off to find another hapless victim. “Into what? I can’t promise everything but I won’t blow up the Ministry.”

“Keep your voice down or they’ll-” Draco was about to tell Harry he’d have his wand confiscated but he trailed off at the sight of the statue in the middle of the room.

Harry blushed, his eyes finding a particularly interesting tile to focus on. “They erected it ages ago - I did ask Shacklebolt to have it taken down but he thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I still can’t quite believe I have to walk past a seven foot carving of my own face every morning. It’s ridiculous.”

Draco hid his mouth behind his hand as he tried to keep his bubbling giggles at bay. “I’m very proud of you sweetheart - your hair’s been captured perfectly.”  
Whoever had carved the piece had obviously used a photo of Harry that had been taken very early in the morning; his eyes were tired and his hair was even more of a bird's nest than usual.

“I already want to die of shame and I’ve been here five minutes.”

* * *

“Do you have your speech with you?” Draco looked down at Harry’s hands, noticing they were empty.

“I was supposed to write a speech?!” Harry looked panicked now. “It’s okay, I can improvise!”

“Oh no you can not.” Draco lost the colour in his face. “I’m not having any obscene quotes splashed across the Prophet just yet. You’re going to have to pretend you’ve lost your voice.”

Harry nodded. He smiled at Draco, who’d unknowingly given him the permission he needed to not talk to any reporter for the entire night. It wasn’t quite bliss, but it was close enough.

* * *

He heard the sound of her thin heels before he saw the rest of her. Pansy had kept her A-line bob and her severe frown, but her wardrobe choice had become much more conservative since she’d landed a high end business partnership with a Muggleborn investor in Japan.

“Draco, darling, how are you?”

Harry.” She inclined her head before turning back to her old schoolfriend. 

“How was your trip? I know you were panicking about the-” 

If a look could convey how much someone wanted to cast a lip-lock Charm, Draco wore it. 

“Oh never-mind I’m sure it’ll be delightful.” Pansy rolled her arms before trying to engage Harry in a conversation she obviously didn’t want. 

“Harry’s lost his voice.” Draco laughed easily, “so I’m going to be doing most of the talking tonight.”

“Oh! But wasn’t he supposed to do that impassioned speech about war orphans?” Her dark lipsticked mouth quirked upwards as she crossed her ankles, her hands sliding seamlessly into her trouser pockets.

She stopped herself as Draco glared at her, shaking his head.

She clicked her tongue in irritation.“You’re no fun.”

Pansy pouted before stalking off turning only to tell him she’d inform the Minister of Harry’s _issue._ “You owe me Malfoy.”

“Pans’!” Draco called to her retreating back.

He turned back around and immediately flushed. “Oh. Minister, hello!”

Shaklebolt’s smile was brief. “I heard our Head Auror can’t do his speech… as his partner he must have at least read it to you, could you...?” The Minister let the question hang in the air.

Draco swallowed and squared his shoulders. “Of course.” He could do impassioned speeches.

“Harry. Love you. Stay out of trouble.”

Harry made his way over to the buffet table as Draco started improvising - and quite well, at that - about the war and suffering and building community. It actually sounded quite earnest and Harry would have listened if it concerned him at all, but he was currently fighting with a tablecloth.

Somehow he’d managed to get the end of the tablecloth twisted quite severely into one of his belt loops and removing it required a lot of fiddling while pretending to look interested in the caviar.

“Oh no-” he whispered as the tablecloth disentangled swiftly from his trousers only to end up on the floor: multiple entrees crashing down with it.

A hush fell over the room as multiple pairs of eyes swivelled towards the sound of broken crockery.

* * *

“Well, that was a disaster. Whoever said ‘ _it’s just a bad day not a bad life_ ’ was definitely lying.” Harry was sat on the toilet lid as Draco sponged his dress shirt quite vigorously with a wet cloth.

“Just think, you have the prophet to look forward to!”

Harry rested his chin on top of Draco’s head as he knelt, sighing as he gave up on the mess.  
”I think you might have to hop in the shower.”

“At least Shacklebolt gave me the weekend off!”

“I think he might have had to.” Draco smiled. “Your field skills would be terrible right now.” 

He didn’t mention Ron or Hermione as Harry laughed, instead he watched patiently as Harry struggled with the buttons on his shirt.

”Do you need some help?”

“No.” Eventually he just pulled it over his head, tossing it into the laundry basket with a satisfied sound. “Maybe I’ve been cursed.”


	3. Curse Breaking

“You’ve been cursed.” Hermione said flatly, looking downcast as she read from the passage again.

“It says here that it’s a mild form of a control spell. Something with the power to cause _minor catastrophes._ ”

Harry rubbed his knuckles along the table, back and forth. “I thought I was just being clumsy.”

“So did everyone else.” 

“Hermione! Do you have so little faith in me that-”

She cut him off, pointing a finger at him. “Yes. And Draco’s going to have to hold off on… Never mind that, you were supposed to write that speech for the Minister - a month ago, Harry, don’t go blaming that on the curse - and it was Draco who saved you from possibly being fired! It was important!”

Harry acquiesced to that.

He’d refused to look at the paper that morning - not that he read it anyway, but he usually liked having some idea of the topic of conversation just in case he was sprang upon by a particularly enthusiastic witch. There was no chance of that now, not until this curse was lifted.

“So, what is it? Do I have to break the curse with a kiss?” Harry wiggled his eyebrows. “Am I going to have to propose to the love of my life?”

Hermione glared at him. “If only we were so lucky.” She said drily, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. ”God knows why Draco wants to marry you.”

”Draco wants to marry me?” Harry’s eyes lit up. 

Hermione’s hand flew to her mouth as she swore under her breath. “You can’t tell him you know. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, I really didn’t mean to say anything Harry, I’m so sorry.”

Harry’s eyes were shining as he tried to concentrate on the book Hermione had open on the kitchen table.   
  
”Yeah... yeah okay. Sure”

Hermione nodded gratefully. “Thankfully this curse doesn’t involve your untimely death so you just need to fulfill the conditions.” She scribbled frantically as she spoke, her pencil scratching quietly on the back of a piece of discarded parchment. “We have bigger problems than your love life you know.”

“I can’t just not do anything until this is lifted. I have a life. Oh god what if Draco proposes and I do something stupid? What if the department make fun of him because he’s with _me?_ ”

“Now you’re being overdramatic. Just pretend you don’t know for Christ’s sake.” Hermione put her hand to her forehead for a second. 

“Okay, okay. Don’t give me that look.”

The look had been withering. 

“Shacklebolt might relegate you to the archives, or actually make you do your backlog of paperwork.”

“You don’t know anything about my paperwork load, that’s private information of the Auror Department.”

“Not according to your colleagues.” Hermione smiled. “Ah, Ron! There you are!”

“Sorry ‘Mione I have to go, promised the lads I’d meet them at the pub.”

Harry smiled wide.

“Harry! Don’t you dare!”

He didn’t hear the rest of her micro-speech as he grabbed his jacket from where he’d flung it over the back of the kitchen chair, leaving Hermione sour-faced, standing alone in the hallway.

“Damn him. I can’t believe he didn’t even look at my list!” She darted into the kitchen, kneeling down close to the grate.

“Floo call to 12 Grimmauld Place, Draco Malfoy.”

* * *

“So, what’s all that about?” Ron nodded to the crumpled piece of paper that Harry had just about managed to spell clean after he’d spilled his beer over it.

The rest of Ron’s backyard Quidditch team had gone home and it was just him and Harry, the round empty table covered in beer rings and empty packets of nuts.

“‘Mione gave me some conditions.”

“What, like tasks you have to do because of the circumstances affecting the way you live?”

“The more you talk the more you sound like a dictionary.” Harry levitated a plate of chips over from where they sat at the end of the bar under a hand drawn sign labelled: **Collections**.

“Really, mate? You couldn’t have walked the two feet in front of you to get the chips?” Ron shook his head, his stubble almost glowing under the low lights.

Harry waved the paper as if that was proof enough before turning back to his beer.

He thought he was doing quite well at not asking his best mate about Draco’s ring choices when the pubs side door creaked open.

* * *

Draco paced his office in small circles as Hermione leant against the door jamb.

“He should be alright for a certain length of time - don’t ask me how long he’s got its specific to the castor/castee - but since he slipped in the shower this morning and managed to completely destroy his filing system-”

“His filing system? No, no, that is his filing system. Merlin knows how he can find anything in that mess but-”

“Wait, so he’s only had one disaster today?” Hermione decided she could corner him about getting a filing tray some other time. “He’s drinking, we have to do something before he makes a complete fool of himself.”

“Won’t the alcohol give him some sort of cover?”

“Possibly but he will definitely make a fool of himself. The alcohol will either speed the curse itself up or increase the effects of it. So it might be more than a tablecloth problem. We need to make sure he at least drinks some sort of hangover potion.” She winced as she said it before looking at Draco. “Can you stop pacing? It’s making me jittery.”

“Sorry.” He forced himself to stand still, his hands coming down on the back of his office chair, where he started tapping. “I’m just really worried about him. He might do something irreparable. I might do something irreparable.”

“You won’t. He loves you.” Hermione said quietly. “I promise, he’ll be over the moon after all this is over. I _know it._ Now I’ll go make you a cup of tea. Stay here; we can talk through options when you’ve had something to drink.”

* * *

“Can’t we just storm down there and get him?”

“He’s got his wand on him, I don’t want to be hit with any angry spells, which we will be if we just try to drag him away.”

They’d been going back and forth on the issue for long enough that they were both getting progressively more annoyed with the other.

Hermione unshrunk the book she’d brought with her - With Curses - and dumped it on the half full desk to her right. She only slightly cringed as Harry’s terrible filing system drifted to the floor.

Draco peered over her shoulder as she read him the passages.

He stopped her.

“You’ve messed up the translation.”

“Where?”

“Here.” Draco pointed to a particularly fancy piece of handwritten Latin. “This means, uh, kissing. Essentially.”

Hermione looked pained as she slammed the book shut. “I can’t tell him.”

“You can’t tell him what?”

“That he was right, essentially.” Her eyes were steely as she levelled her chin towards Draco, who was trying his best not to smirk. “Don’t. Say. A. Word.”

* * *

“Everyone, Look! It’s my husband!”

Draco had tried slipping into the pub via the side entrance, expecting to sneak up behind Harry so that he could be seated before the man even knew he was there. No such luck.

He waved awkwardly at some glaring faces he remembered vaguely: a gaggle of girls no older than eighteen seated by the door, an older man who seemed irritated by Harry’s outburst - probably one of those who wrote an underread column about unwarranted fame and exuberant youth - and another small crowd of reporters seated in the back, probably trying their best to be noticed as little as Draco.

It was almost a race to Harry’s table as Draco wove his way through the crowds.

He sat down with a casual “Hey, babe.” that probably sounded more like a strangled cat. “I’m not your husband.” He felt his heart keen against his chest as Harry’s face visibly dropped.

While Draco was in his element at functions, any event that required him to be anything other than perfectly manicured made him feel like a fish out of water. He was overdressed, he could tell, looking at Ron and Harry in jeans next to his pressed trousers and slightly open button up shirt.

“I’m not trying to crash your downtime, but Hermione wanted me to keep an eye on you.”

“Did you want to keep an eye on me?”

The question caught Draco off guard, if he said yes he’d look possessive and if he said no he’d look like he didn’t care about Harry’s wellbeing. Or at least he knew that’s how the newspapers would spin it.

If they weren’t the Celebrity Couple the people wanted, the Prophet would definitely let them know. Draco cringed as a camera went off somewhere to his right, making a mental note to apologise to Ginny at some point - this was definitely harder than she’d made it look.

As another camera clicked he was pulled back to 1998 and some long-forgotten headline that had her pitched against Cho for at least a month.

“I’ve got a sobering potion in my pocket. Please take it before you do anything you’ll regret.”

“What, like I have my whole weekend?” Harry grimaced as he lowered his head onto the table, Draco pressing his palm in circles in between his shoulder blades.

* * *

Hermione got to the pub when the sky had already blackened. Harry was most certainly drunk. More drunk than he’d ever been in his life, he assumed, as he watched the floor sway under his feet and the sky splinter into stars.

The sobering potion had been wrapped tightly in his fist since Draco had insisted he take it. Now that the cold was hitting him he realised he probably needed it.

Taking a long drink, Harry’s vision blurred more than usual before slamming back into focus like a snapped elastic band.

He thought he saw Hermione but when he looked back up there was just Draco, standing on the pavement - alone.

“She didn’t want to be here for this.”

Draco’s hair tickled Harry’s forehead as he leant down, his cool hands coming up to cup Harry’s warm cheeks.

“Do you trust me, Harry?”

“Yes.” The word was low, barely a breath.

“I do want to marry you, you know?”

“I know.” Harry smiled into Draco’s neck as he buried his face inbetween his collar.

Harry thought for a moment that Draco would pull back, especially when the rain started to fall, soft and steady. His glasses were wet with rainwater and Draco’s blonde hair was darkening.

Their foreheads pressed together, a single, perfect moment, trapped at the end of the most disastrous week of Harry’s life.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes. You don’t have to ask.”

“Yes I do.”

Harry felt almost imperceptibly lighter as Draco touched his lips to Harry’s.

* * *

“Whatever was in that kiss must have been strong.” Harry laughed as he stumbled over his own feet, Draco grabbing him around the waist before he could fall. They were back in Grimmauld Place, the apparition far less sickness-inducing than usual.

“It was the acetone.” Draco said in a deadpan, watching Harry’s face change to one of horror before Draco giggled. “I love you but if I was to poison you, you think I would put the poison on my own lips?”

“Oh, right.” Harry smiled. “ _If I was to poison you._ ” He mimicked. “Wow. I love you too.”

Harry made his way over to the bed, yawning a little as he sat down, taking off his shirt more smoothly than he had in the last week. 

“Since you’ve had such a terrible week I’m going to leave you in here,” he glanced around to make sure the bedroom was tidy enough for Harry not to make a fool of himself if he disappeared. “I’ll assume you’re okay to put yourself to bed while I make your tea.”

“ _Dinner_.” Harry smiled fondly, already undoing his jeans. “Tea,” he rolled his eyes, “you’re so pretentious… Can you make me sausages?”

“And one egg, four slices of bacon, two rounds of toast and a cup of water?”

Harry beamed, tipping his head up to kiss Draco on the cheek. “I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Probably finishing off Molly’s pantry instead of ours.”

Harry coloured at this, smiling sheepishly. “She dropped off some sort of cake. I don’t know what it is but I found it in the fireplace with a note.”

“She flooed you a cake and you said nothing?”

“She flooed _us_ a cake. Well, you. The note thanked you for looking after me and things.”

* * *

Draco shut the door to their bedroom and made his way down to the kitchen, humming softly, only to be revolted by himself when he realised it was Celestina Warbeck’s _You Stole My Cauldron But You Can't Have My Heart._

The note was taped to the cake plate and Draco read as he whirled his wand around the kitchen, looking up only when he misjudged the placement of the pack of sausage, leaving the note to rescue them from the floor.

Thank you for looking after my boy. You have my blessing, I hope you make each other very happy   
Molly x

Draco ignored the thumping in his heart as he thought about the little ring box tucked at the back of his bedside cabinet, concentrating instead on the sizzling egg in the frying pan.

* * *

Draco fiddled with the water glass before giving it to Harry. He gulped, spreading his hands wide. “I’m really nervous.”

He turned away, rifling quickly through the drawer, fingers skating over the other items he’d left in there; a ballpoint pen, little love notes Harry had left over the years, a pack of seeds for a houseplant that had yet to actually be planted, and, of course, the box tucked at the back.

It was a dark blue velvet, rounded at the top. He tried not to catch his fingers on the hinges as he pried it from it’s corner.

“Hermione told me I might have to wait because of, well, everything. But I think I’ve waited long enough. I know it’s terrible etiquette to do this while you’re eating but I’m just really nervous and I hate keeping secrets from you even though it’s not really a secret anymore.” He laughed.

Harry heard his fork clatter back onto his plate, the piece of bacon dropping back down onto the tray as he watched Draco position himself at the end of the bed - the ring box going from a theoretical to an actuality in seconds.

“I hope you’ll say yes.”

The ring was simple, nestled in a bed of white silk. Harry moved his tray to his side table, moving closer to Draco and the box. “Are you actually asking to marry me?”

“Yes?” The word was drawn out, like a question.

“Yes.” Harry said firmly before wrapping his arms around Draco, assuring himself again that this was real. ”I’m glad I didn’t scare you off with... everything.”

”The opposite, I think.”

”The opposite?”

”You’ve made me feel more secure than ever before, Harry. If we can get through this, we can get through other things...”

Harry interlocked their fingers as Draco traced the light scarring on the back of his hands. “Together?” he supplied absentmindedly.

”Together.” Draco nodded. “Now thag we don’t have your multiple mishaps to contend with.”

”Oh you’ll still have mishaps. They’ll just be man-made.” Harry smiled, twirling the ring around his finger, already thinking about how he’d probably lose it in the bath within a month.


End file.
